You state: “I’m not sure why you keep trying to make these points to me”. Jim, I not sure why you keep pushing your flawed agenda. You say that all you’re doing in this comment section is innocuously pointing things out, making claims, giving statements, even having made a ‘proof’. What you’re doing is making assertions, eg: “We have more regulations now that ever”. “Incomes have stagnated at the low end due to those workers being less and less able to compete in an ever changing and globalizing world.” There’s a reason Wikipedia calls that kind of loose language weasel words. “…less and less able to compete in an ever changing and globalizing world.”(?) As in jobs going to Mexico, China , Indonesia. Really, Jim, your cliches are a bit dated.

Your single link just demonstrates the obscene wealth that a small number possess. Having such a lopsided distribution of wealth in any society is a gross flaw. Morally and functionally. You can’t say it has no effect on the rest of the society. The article you referenced says specifically that it does. “Whatever the measure, the numbers show just how dependent the U.S. has become on the earnings of the wealthy.” It also states, “The one percenters’ share of taxes is 2.7 times their share of income in taxes.” Or stated another way, take the ratio of the total amount of taxes collected in the country to the total amount of taxable income and compare that to the ratio for the top 1%. The 1% figure is 2.7 times greater than the national average. The article omits that the top federal tax rate now is the lowest it has been since WWII.

Before I forget, yes, that was a howler when I said George Soros for Warren Buffett. I was only off by 40 some billion.

You intimate a less than accepting view towards regulations. Since about the time of WWI, IIRC, up through 1980, the US was the biggest creditor nation in the world. Not surprisingly since the US has had the largest economy on the planet since at least 1900. The beginning of the deregulation era, starting with the Reagan administration and continuing to the present, took all of three yrs to make the US the biggest debtor nation in the world, which also continues to the present. It was also the start of the full frontal attack on lowering the taxes for the highest percentiles.

This brings up another stark phenomenon during this period. When countering a commentator’s claim that the minimum wage for 1962 would be $22/hr in today’s value, you stated that figure is referenced to increases in productivity and not inflation. That highlights a major bias against the working class over the past 40 some yrs. For a century and a half each succeeding generation had it financially better that the previous, until the 1970’s. While the workers’ productivity wasn’t reflected in their income, that wasn’t the case for the investor class who benefitted and are benefitting handsomely. Lamenting that the top 1% pay too much in taxes is lame propaganda. As is stating that wages for the ‘working class’ are at all time highs, intentionally conflating a superlative description of wages for a relative value of wages. As one of the commentator’s said: ‘Shame Shame’. I might add that this extends across boarders with the ‘Trade’ agreements, which are thinly veiled wealthy investor rights agreements. For those concerned about ‘World Government’, look no farther than the WTO with its power to make adjudications.

When I mentioned ‘consumerism’ it was not referring to consumerism as presented in a junior high introductory text book. It is consumerism as seen through in the eyes of the Chicago school of economics and the pr industry, meaning it’s an ideology. A cult like ideology, creating in the general lexicon such addictions as hyperconsumerism. It’s not a virtue but a malaise. Sure there’s ‘free will’, as the apologists like to parrot, but that’s the job of the public relations industry, isn’t it, to generate the propaganda that overrides that ‘free will’.

You have a blind eye to the self-center behavior of the very wealthy yet exhibit 20-20 eyesight when it comes to denigrating the ‘bottom 40%’. “40% pay nothing”, “And if you have no deductions you get the … wait for it… standard deduction (which was put in specifically to help people without other deductions).” Yet it’s an economic truism that those in the lower percentiles pour the highest percentage of their income back into the economy than those at the highest end. For the 1% worldwide, purchasing luxury items does very little to aid any economy but they are absolutely brilliant at capital flight.

Further readings:
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Information from the 'Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’itep.org

Read the Report in PDF Fairness Matters: A Chart Book on Who Pays State and Local Taxes See State-By-State Data…

Very little has been said on the Entitlements that go to the wealthy. Let’s fix that. Plenty of links in this past Common Dreams piece by Paul Buchheit. Don’t worry, Jim. There’s not a Maoist group among them. Just hard data. You’ll love it.

The Absurd Amount of Entitlements That Go to Rich People Paul Buchheit
Many wealthy Americans complain about the amount of government subsidies going to the poor. Their complaints demonstrate ignorance, or greed, or a total lack of fair-mindedness, or a combination of all those symptoms of entitlement at the top. The Rich Get as Much of the Safety Net as the Poor
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